i don't want to be underweight, and it's not just about my health, it's unattractive.
sorry.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
it's easy to look at the vlogs and claim i had a perfect living arrangement and was stupid to screw it up, but that is wrong.
1) the unit was infested with bugs.
2) the building was full of second-hand smoke.
3) there was some kind of chemical leak - probably a natural gas leak - that was giving me migraines. i haven't had a migraine since i moved out of there.
4) the neighbourhood was infested with stray cats, who left piles of feces in the backyard.
5) the neighbours were continually chain smoking in the backyard, making it hard to keep the window open, to fight the a/c.
6) the building owners were constantly harassing me.
7) the neighbourhood was becoming increasingly dangerous, and at this point is flat out unsafe.
8) there was some kind of magnetic field in the neighbourhood that was disrupting my equipment.
the harassment was not minor; it ranged from leaving feces on my window sill (which i have video evidence of) to leaving cigarette butts at my front door to entering my unit when i was gone. the intent was clearly to try to get me to move out. i had no choice but to try and push back, but i could not have kept any money awarded to me as compensation (unless in the form of rent reduction), so the attempt from the start was to try and change behaviour.
what do you do when the building you live in gets bought out by a pathological liar that is harassing you on a daily basis and wants you to move out? there's no good answer, it's just a terrible turn of events. your only real options are to either try and force the owners to sell by bankrupting them and/or sending them to jail, or to relent and move out. i initially picked the first option, then stepped back when they made what seemed like a legitimate step to change their behaviour - only to realize within days that it was simply another example of pathological dishonesty, and antisocial behaviour, indicating that there wasn't a solution besides bleeding them dry, and staying there would be a long slog of constant court battles - i was going to have to sue them over and over again until they had to sell.
i have argued in this space that the ruling against me (eviction for personal use) was incorrect, and i do believe that i would have won an appeal. i even suspect some corruption on the court, unfortunately. but, i was living in a roach-infested ashtray that was giving me headaches and had bad wiring that was interfering with my ability to record. i had a moment of clarity: staying there no longer felt worth fighting for.
i did not lose money on the move, in fact i gained last month's rent from the city, so i did not have any damages to recoup, but came out ahead by $700. they also covered moving costs. on the other hand, the process must have cost them between $5,000-$10,000.
so, i could have re-opened the harassment case after i moved, but i wouldn't have been able to benefit from it. on winning the case, i would have had to declare the money as income, and handed it back to the odsp office. so, why bother? i wanted to look forwards. the purpose of the case was to try and get them to stop the constant harassment intending to get me to move, or to bankrupt them if they wouldn't. once i had moved, the purpose became purely punitive, and it seemed like they had already been punished via the costs of hiring representation and appealing to the board. things were looking up; i had better things to do.
i did keep an eye on the unit to see if they were renting it, as that would give me a path to damages i could claim via rent reduction. it doesn't look like they did. i suspect they realized that the unit was not half as valuable as they thought, after all. who knows how much money they've sunk into it, trying to renovate it...
as we know, the living situation in the apartment was not good for me. but, the difficulties i had in the apartment do not negate the problems i had in the previous basement, which were a consequence of a number of changes: installing the gas furnace seems to have created leaks that gave me headaches and broke the electrical wiring, my decision to quit smoking made the unit difficult to live in, gross neighbours moved in and the building changed ownership, with a new owner that was a dishonest, capitalistic nihilist. it would have been better if i would have gotten it right the first time, but i had to move out of there, and would have even if i hadn't quit smoking.
hopefully, it works out better, here, once i do the things i need to do to get the unit in proper order.
but, i don't look back at that as something lost - i'm better off being out of there.
1) the unit was infested with bugs.
2) the building was full of second-hand smoke.
3) there was some kind of chemical leak - probably a natural gas leak - that was giving me migraines. i haven't had a migraine since i moved out of there.
4) the neighbourhood was infested with stray cats, who left piles of feces in the backyard.
5) the neighbours were continually chain smoking in the backyard, making it hard to keep the window open, to fight the a/c.
6) the building owners were constantly harassing me.
7) the neighbourhood was becoming increasingly dangerous, and at this point is flat out unsafe.
8) there was some kind of magnetic field in the neighbourhood that was disrupting my equipment.
the harassment was not minor; it ranged from leaving feces on my window sill (which i have video evidence of) to leaving cigarette butts at my front door to entering my unit when i was gone. the intent was clearly to try to get me to move out. i had no choice but to try and push back, but i could not have kept any money awarded to me as compensation (unless in the form of rent reduction), so the attempt from the start was to try and change behaviour.
what do you do when the building you live in gets bought out by a pathological liar that is harassing you on a daily basis and wants you to move out? there's no good answer, it's just a terrible turn of events. your only real options are to either try and force the owners to sell by bankrupting them and/or sending them to jail, or to relent and move out. i initially picked the first option, then stepped back when they made what seemed like a legitimate step to change their behaviour - only to realize within days that it was simply another example of pathological dishonesty, and antisocial behaviour, indicating that there wasn't a solution besides bleeding them dry, and staying there would be a long slog of constant court battles - i was going to have to sue them over and over again until they had to sell.
i have argued in this space that the ruling against me (eviction for personal use) was incorrect, and i do believe that i would have won an appeal. i even suspect some corruption on the court, unfortunately. but, i was living in a roach-infested ashtray that was giving me headaches and had bad wiring that was interfering with my ability to record. i had a moment of clarity: staying there no longer felt worth fighting for.
i did not lose money on the move, in fact i gained last month's rent from the city, so i did not have any damages to recoup, but came out ahead by $700. they also covered moving costs. on the other hand, the process must have cost them between $5,000-$10,000.
so, i could have re-opened the harassment case after i moved, but i wouldn't have been able to benefit from it. on winning the case, i would have had to declare the money as income, and handed it back to the odsp office. so, why bother? i wanted to look forwards. the purpose of the case was to try and get them to stop the constant harassment intending to get me to move, or to bankrupt them if they wouldn't. once i had moved, the purpose became purely punitive, and it seemed like they had already been punished via the costs of hiring representation and appealing to the board. things were looking up; i had better things to do.
i did keep an eye on the unit to see if they were renting it, as that would give me a path to damages i could claim via rent reduction. it doesn't look like they did. i suspect they realized that the unit was not half as valuable as they thought, after all. who knows how much money they've sunk into it, trying to renovate it...
as we know, the living situation in the apartment was not good for me. but, the difficulties i had in the apartment do not negate the problems i had in the previous basement, which were a consequence of a number of changes: installing the gas furnace seems to have created leaks that gave me headaches and broke the electrical wiring, my decision to quit smoking made the unit difficult to live in, gross neighbours moved in and the building changed ownership, with a new owner that was a dishonest, capitalistic nihilist. it would have been better if i would have gotten it right the first time, but i had to move out of there, and would have even if i hadn't quit smoking.
hopefully, it works out better, here, once i do the things i need to do to get the unit in proper order.
but, i don't look back at that as something lost - i'm better off being out of there.
the guy that i signed the lease with was honest, if not very smart.
the woman that took over was neither intelligent nor honest, but a pathological liar that would repeatedly balls out lie to me to my face in ways that were not difficult to detect. she seemed to think she was smart, and that her intelligence level was correlated with her ability to trick people into thinking things that were not true. but, she wasn't fooling anybody, she was just an obvious liar.
i've been over this point in this space repeatedly and don't see the use in continuing on with it. i guess the truth will come out when i finally get to publishing the vlogs from that space.
i just need to state it again: this woman is not merely a little bit dishonest, she is constantly lying, and cannot be trusted to state the most basic truths.
the woman that took over was neither intelligent nor honest, but a pathological liar that would repeatedly balls out lie to me to my face in ways that were not difficult to detect. she seemed to think she was smart, and that her intelligence level was correlated with her ability to trick people into thinking things that were not true. but, she wasn't fooling anybody, she was just an obvious liar.
i've been over this point in this space repeatedly and don't see the use in continuing on with it. i guess the truth will come out when i finally get to publishing the vlogs from that space.
i just need to state it again: this woman is not merely a little bit dishonest, she is constantly lying, and cannot be trusted to state the most basic truths.
and, listen - there is no ambiguity on the point. the bugs in the previous basement were oriental roaches and looked like this:
oriental roaches live in drains and sewage systems, cannot climb walls, and move very slowly because they eat a low nutrition diet of sewage. so, they are both the grossest type of roach and the easiest to deal with.
as i am not an etymologist., and bugs can be difficult to id, there was an initial point of less than certainty. but, it was a short amount of time before i was certain about it. and, looking back, there is really no ambiguity.
further, it's not like the property owners denied it - they were forthright about it, and willing to work with me to help me contain it. they claimed they were 'american roaches', and i did see a couple of roaches that i think were german, but i was able to deal with them by blocking holes in the electrical heating. these ones were faster and more reactive to stimuli; they would jump into holes in the wall before you could get them. i was there from mid-2013 to late 2017, and i don't remember seeing these roaches - at all - after the first few months of living there. the steel wool worked like a charm.
the ones that kept coming back were the orientals. what the property owner told me was that they came in through the sewer lines, which were open in the back room. i was able to get a look at it at one point, when i finally forced them to get an eel in to clear the drain, and it's some kind of ancient system that is really an open sewer. i agreed with the analysis, but i was convinced they were coming in around the back of the unit, rather than under the front door.
we decided that it would be best if they let me deal with it, i just requested that they buy me the pesticides. so, i'd ask for some more spray every once in a while and liberally go over the back spaces with it.
there's quite a bit of documented evidence over the course of the vlog - i kill roaches, take pictures of their dead bodies, etc. i'd invite some analysis. but, it's not an open question, and not a debate i had when i lived there - they readily conceded the point.
oriental roaches live in drains and sewage systems, cannot climb walls, and move very slowly because they eat a low nutrition diet of sewage. so, they are both the grossest type of roach and the easiest to deal with.
as i am not an etymologist., and bugs can be difficult to id, there was an initial point of less than certainty. but, it was a short amount of time before i was certain about it. and, looking back, there is really no ambiguity.
further, it's not like the property owners denied it - they were forthright about it, and willing to work with me to help me contain it. they claimed they were 'american roaches', and i did see a couple of roaches that i think were german, but i was able to deal with them by blocking holes in the electrical heating. these ones were faster and more reactive to stimuli; they would jump into holes in the wall before you could get them. i was there from mid-2013 to late 2017, and i don't remember seeing these roaches - at all - after the first few months of living there. the steel wool worked like a charm.
the ones that kept coming back were the orientals. what the property owner told me was that they came in through the sewer lines, which were open in the back room. i was able to get a look at it at one point, when i finally forced them to get an eel in to clear the drain, and it's some kind of ancient system that is really an open sewer. i agreed with the analysis, but i was convinced they were coming in around the back of the unit, rather than under the front door.
we decided that it would be best if they let me deal with it, i just requested that they buy me the pesticides. so, i'd ask for some more spray every once in a while and liberally go over the back spaces with it.
there's quite a bit of documented evidence over the course of the vlog - i kill roaches, take pictures of their dead bodies, etc. i'd invite some analysis. but, it's not an open question, and not a debate i had when i lived there - they readily conceded the point.
so, i do, in fact, appear to be in the northern range of the boxelder bug, as i'm in that little bit of canadian range around detroit.
i'm not an etymologist, and identifying bugs can be tricky, so i might be wrong, but i'm pretty sure it's not a roach - i spent quite a while studying roaches in the last basement, and this doesn't fit the description of any i've seen. to begin with, it's very small compared to most species of roaches. but, this picture is pretty close to spot on:
i just caught it stumbling around in my blanket when i was napping; woke up to it, initially thought it was a phantom. i'd never seen one before....
and, it is in fact the first bug i've seen in here - excluding a couple of small centipedes.
apparently, they live on trees and winter inside and it's not something to be concerned about until i start seeing a few more of them. but, i'm wondering if this was the smell i was noticing.
i can chase some bugs out if i have to; if this is the worst of it, it seems like a minor annoyance.
i'm not an etymologist, and identifying bugs can be tricky, so i might be wrong, but i'm pretty sure it's not a roach - i spent quite a while studying roaches in the last basement, and this doesn't fit the description of any i've seen. to begin with, it's very small compared to most species of roaches. but, this picture is pretty close to spot on:
and, it is in fact the first bug i've seen in here - excluding a couple of small centipedes.
apparently, they live on trees and winter inside and it's not something to be concerned about until i start seeing a few more of them. but, i'm wondering if this was the smell i was noticing.
i can chase some bugs out if i have to; if this is the worst of it, it seems like a minor annoyance.
she got a friend to do it, in the hallway. i think it was before algebra class, because i remember it was in the c building, the old building at pius, which was still haunted by the ghost of dan akroyd (and who you gonna call when it's the ghost of dan akroyd?) from the days when it was a real catholic school, with nuns and priests, and i don't remember taking any other classes in the c building that year.
hopefully, the remaining aura of dan akroyd's sense of humour is helping the dead souls of the people that were killed there, years ago, by an angry child. this was all years before my time.
finite math was in the portable. calculus was in the new building, which was what? a? b? i don't remember. so was english, physics, bio & chem - although i think i took bio & chem the year before. computer science was downstairs. and that's the eight i took.
most people took 6 pre-university courses; i took 8 because i didn't know what i wanted to study, and i wanted my options open. clearly, i was leaning towards a science-based education. that said, i would have liked to have taken a music course as well, but there wasn't really an option. a lot of people took geography, but i felt this was pointless. i somewhat regret not taking history. were there other options? i think economics was an option. the only mandatory course to graduate was english.
so, it was definitely algebra class.
i remember coming in after i told her friend 'no', and she was shaking and distraught and embarrassed and...not exactly crying, but clearly on the brink of it. again: still a teenage girl, and on some level the smart ones are the manic ones, right? she was visibly very upset.
so, i tried to be rational, and i think it worked.
"listen, i don't want to go to prom. i have my own reasons. that doesn't mean i hate you. i'm a little surprised by the request, but i'm not going to get weird about this. and, we can keep it between the three of us. so, let's just be rational about it and move forwards. i'm sure you'll find somebody else."
she was a smart kid, and she instantly perked up and went back to her normal self - stoic, distant, introverted and kind of barely there.
but, i don't remember actually speaking to her again after that.
hopefully, the remaining aura of dan akroyd's sense of humour is helping the dead souls of the people that were killed there, years ago, by an angry child. this was all years before my time.
finite math was in the portable. calculus was in the new building, which was what? a? b? i don't remember. so was english, physics, bio & chem - although i think i took bio & chem the year before. computer science was downstairs. and that's the eight i took.
most people took 6 pre-university courses; i took 8 because i didn't know what i wanted to study, and i wanted my options open. clearly, i was leaning towards a science-based education. that said, i would have liked to have taken a music course as well, but there wasn't really an option. a lot of people took geography, but i felt this was pointless. i somewhat regret not taking history. were there other options? i think economics was an option. the only mandatory course to graduate was english.
so, it was definitely algebra class.
i remember coming in after i told her friend 'no', and she was shaking and distraught and embarrassed and...not exactly crying, but clearly on the brink of it. again: still a teenage girl, and on some level the smart ones are the manic ones, right? she was visibly very upset.
so, i tried to be rational, and i think it worked.
"listen, i don't want to go to prom. i have my own reasons. that doesn't mean i hate you. i'm a little surprised by the request, but i'm not going to get weird about this. and, we can keep it between the three of us. so, let's just be rational about it and move forwards. i'm sure you'll find somebody else."
she was a smart kid, and she instantly perked up and went back to her normal self - stoic, distant, introverted and kind of barely there.
but, i don't remember actually speaking to her again after that.
so, a muslim, a republican and a liberal walk into a film festival. the popcorn-tender asks them - who is your favourite director, oliver stone or david lynch?
the muslim immediately responds "oliver stone".
the republican says "david lynch".
the liberal says "neither. i don't believe in capital punishment.".
the muslim immediately responds "oliver stone".
the republican says "david lynch".
the liberal says "neither. i don't believe in capital punishment.".
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